This issue we talk to Dominic Pecchenino from Marlborough. Pecchenino is a grower and chairman of the research committee.

The performance of a variety of sprayers was put to the test at a workshop in Gisborne earlier this year.

If any year has proved that water storage is necessary for grape growers in Marlborough, 2015’s summer is it.

Charlotte Krajewski, age 26, is a cellar hand at Elephant Hill.

Until the 1980s, the low-alcohol German wine Muller Thurgau was popular internationally and in New Zealand, though wine experts maligned the Riesling-Madeleine Royale varietal as “bland”.

Phylloxera. The very word strikes fear into the heart of grape growers and winemakers everywhere from Bordeaux to Central Otago, where emaciated vines, yellowing leaves and declining productivity are of growing concern to those with phylloxera.

Recently I had a winemaker friend ring to discuss this year as being a good candidate for ATA and asked if there was much we could test for to predict this.

Milk payout will improve next season, but cashflow will remain tight on farms, say market analysts.

Worksafe NZ's prosecution of Work and Income New Zealand over last year’s Ashburton shootings holds worrying implications for New Zealand farmers, says the Federated Farmers board member responsible for health and safety, Katie Milne.

Farmers are among the fastest business people seeing the advantages of UAV technology, says Warren Eade of GeoSystems NZ. (UAV stands for unmanned aerial vehicle, or ‘drone’).